Tiger Woods Gives Update On PGA Tour Negotiations With Saudi Arabian PIF

Tiger Woods makes his first start of 2024 at this week's Genesis Invitational, with the 15-time Major winner speaking to the media for the first time this year, and the first time since he was part of negotiations in bringing Strategic Sports Group on board with the tour in a huge $3bn deal.

Woods is a key player in the PGA Tour's negotiations, having joined the board as a player director last August. He sits alongside the likes of Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay, and the group are busy behind the scenes in shaping the tour's future.

Following the big money equity deal with SSG, which promised "a firm belief in the expansive growth potential" of the tour, the question remains over whether LIV Golf's financers, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, will come on board to join SSG and unify the game that still remains fractured.

The PIF negotiated a framework deal with the PGA and DP World Tours last June but the December 31 deadline was extended and eight months later, from the outside at least, there's no end in sight for a potential partnership just yet.

Woods is confident that SSG can help to improve the tour and echoed Jordan Spieth's recent words that the PGA Tour is keen to work with the PIF but no longer needs its financial backing.

"Well, the consortium that they have at SSG, the partners that they have that have come together to be a part of this group is quite remarkable to be honest with you in the sports industry," Woods said on Wednesday at Riviera.

"They're unbelievable leaders. At the time that we need great leadership going forward, I think this elicits that. It has amazing -- the amazing brains of ideas that can make this tour better and we're looking forward to that.

"Ultimately we would like to have PIF be a part of our tour and a part of our product. Financially, we don't right now, and the monies that they have come to the table with and what we initially had agreed to in the framework agreement, those are all the same numbers.

"Anything beyond this is going to be obviously over and above. We're in a position right now, hopefully we can make our product better in the short term and long term."

Woods stressed the PIF negotiations are "still ongoing" and discussed the future of LIV players and how they would make their way back onto the PGA Tour.

It's a tricky dilemma for the tour to say the least, with many of its top talent turning down lucrative offers to defect to LIV Golf and instead remaining loyal to the US-based circuit. Meanwhile those players might not feel comfortable with big names like Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and co. returning without penalty after taking nine-figure sums to join LIV Golf.

Rory McIlroy thinks they should be let back, but the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler have all recently said the opposite.

"We're looking into all the different models for pathways back. What that looks like, what the impact is for the players who have stayed and who have not left and how we make our product better going forward, there is no answer to that right now," Woods said.

"We're looking at a very different - varying degrees of ideas and what that looks like in the short term, we don't know. We don't even know in the longer term what that looks like. Trust me, there's daily, weekly emails and talks about this and what this looks like for our tour going forward."

The Genesis Invitational tee times are out, and Woods gets his 2024 campaign underway with close friend Justin Thomas and Gary Woodland, who received an invitational following his recovery from brain surgery.